Chapter
1

ARE MEN BORN
SINNERS?

My friend and I stood
looking down at his tiny newborn baby, lying contentedly in his
crib.

"Of course," said my
friend, "our little Tommy is a sinner."

These words were a
continuation of the doctrine my friend had taught earlier in his
Sunday school class: a doctrine that is accepted as orthodoxy
almost universally in our churches, the doctrine that all of
humanity sinned in Adam when he ate the forbidden fruit, that
Adam's sin, its guilt, and its curse were imputed to all his
descendants, and that all of his descendants are now born with an
Adamic sin nature which makes sin unavoidable and makes us "by
nature the children of wrath."

What makes this incredible
doctrine believable is the fact that there are verses in the Bible
which seem to teach it. Psalm 51:5 comes immediately to the mind
of the Christian who has been taught to believe in the doctrine of
original sin: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my
mother conceive me." This settles it for the Christian. If the
Bible says we were "shapen in iniquity" and "conceived in sin,"
then it has to be so.

And the above text would
teach that men are born sinners if it were meant to be taken
literally. But the language of this text is not literal, it is
figurative. Both context and reality demand a figurative
interpretation of this text.

For example, let's compare
Psalm 51:5 with Job 1:21, which says: "Naked came I out of my
mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither." If Psalm 51:5
can be interpreted literally to teach the doctrine that David and
all other men are born sinners, then Job 1:21 can be interpreted
literally to teach the doctrine that Job and all other men will
some day go back into their mother's womb.

Neither Psalm 51:5 nor Job
1:21 is to be understood literally. They are both figurative
expressions. Both context and our knowledge of reality demand a
figurative interpretation of these two texts.

David uses figurative
language throughout his Psalms. In fact, in the 51st Psalm, verses
five, seven, and eight are all figurative expressions. So if verse
five can be made to teach that men are born sinners, then verse
seven can be made to teach that hyssop cleanses us from sin when
it says, "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean." Also, verse
eight can be made to teach the doctrine that God breaks the
Christian's bones when he sins, and that his broken bones rejoice
when he is forgiven "Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the
bones which thou hast broken may rejoice." Another of David's
Psalms, Psalm 58:3, can be made to teach the astonishing doctrine
that babies speak from the very moment they are born: "The wicked
are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they are
born, speaking lies."

But who would seriously
teach from this last text that babies actually do speak as soon as
they are born? None of these passages is meant to be understood in
a literal sense. They are all figurative expressions. If they were
understood literally, they would all teach what we know to be
contrary to reality; for reality teaches us that bones don't
rejoice, hyssop doesn't purge sin, babies don't speak as soon as
they leave the womb, and an unborn child is not morally
depraved.

The same rules of
interpretation that would permit Psalm 51:5 to teach that babies
are born sinners, would, if applied to these passages (or if
applied to many other passages in the Bible), allow for every kind
of perversion and wild interpretation of God's Word. Look again at
the words of Job 1:21: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and
naked shall I return thither." Did Job, by these words, mean to
teach that he and all other men would some day go back into their
mother's womb? We know that such a meaning is absurd. But it is
just as reasonable to give to Job 1:21 the nonsensical meaning
that Job and all other men will some day go back into their
mother's womb, as it is to give to Psalm 51:5 the nonsensical
meaning that David and all other men are born sinners. David was
not teaching in this passage that he was born a sinner. He instead
was confessing to God the awful guilt and sinfulness of his heart,
and he cried out to God in strong language the language of figure
and symbol to express that awful guilt and sinfulness.

But if David intended to
affirm that he was literally "shapen in iniquity and conceived in
sin," then he affirmed absolute nonsense, and he charged his
Creator with making him a sinner; for David knew that God was his
Maker:

Thy hands have made me and
fashioned me. Psalm 119:73

You made all the delicate,
inner parts of my body, and knit them together in my mother's
womb. Psalm 139:13 (Living Bible)

Know ye that the Lord he is
God: It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves. Psalm
100:3

Are we to understand from
these passages that God fashions men into sinners in their
mother's womb? No, we know that God does not create sinners. Yet,
upon the supposition that Psalm 51:5 teaches that men are born
sinners, these texts could teach nothing else. Who cannot see that
the doctrine that men are born sinners charges God with creating
sinners? It represents man as being formed a sinner in his
mother's womb, when the Bible clearly teaches that God forms man
in his mother's womb. It represents man as coming into this world
a sinner, when the Bible clearly teaches that God creates all men.
It may be objected that God created only Adam and Eve, and that
the rest of mankind descended from them by natural generation. But
this objection does not relieve the doctrine of an inherited sin
nature of its slander and libel of the character of God. For if
man has a sinful nature at birth, who is it who established the
laws of procreation under which he would be born with that nature?
God, of course. There is no escaping the logical inference that is
implicit in the doctrine of an inherited sin nature. It is a
blasphemous and slanderous libel on the character of
God.

But one might as well
reject the Bible out of hand, if he does not want to recognize
that God is the Creator of all men. For the fact that God is the
Creator of all men is one of the clearest truths taught in the
Bible.

Did not he that made me in
the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb? Job
31:15

Before I formed thee in the
belly I knew thee. Jer. 1:5

Have we not all one father?
Hath not one God created us? Mal. 2:10

Remember now thy Creator in
the days of thy youth. Eccl. 12:1

Know ye that the Lord he is
God; it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. Psalm
100:3

I will destroy man whom I
have created from the face of the earth...for it repenteth me that
I have made them. Gen. 6:7

And God said, Let us make
man in our image, after our likeness...So God created man in his
image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created
he them. Gen. 1:26,27

Ye are gods; and all of you
are the children of the most High. Psalm 82:6

For in the image of God
made he man. Gen. 9:6

Man is the image and glory
of God. I Cor. 11:7

Men are made after the
similitude of God. James 3:9

The Lord formeth the spirit
of man within him. Zech. 12:1

The Spirit of God hath made
me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. Job
33:4

He giveth to all life, and
breath, and all things. Acts 17:25

We are the offspring of
God. Acts 17:29

I am the root and the
offspring of David. Rev. 22:16

Lo, this only have I found,
that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many
inventions. Eccl. 7:29

This last text not only
declares that God has created man, but it also affirms that God
created man upright. If man is created upright, he cannot be born
a sinner; and if he is born a sinner, he cannot be created
upright. Either one or the other may be true, but they cannot both
be true for the two are contradictories.

But when God says he
"created us in his image, and gave us life and breath and all
things," are we to understand that he created us as sinners? When
he says, "We are his offspring," are we to understand that his
offspring are born sinners? When Jesus said, "I am the root and
the offspring of David," are we to understand that David sprang
forth from the root Christ Jesus with a sinful nature? Or, are we
to understand that Jesus, as the offspring of David, was born with
a sinful nature? The very fact that Jesus was a man, descended
from Adam, and born with a human nature as we are, shows that men
are not born with a sinful nature. I John 4:3, II John 7, Heb.
2:14, Heb. 2:16-18, Heb. 4:15, Rom. 1:3, Matt. 1:1, Luke
3:38.

The doctrine of original
sin is false: it slanders and libels the character of God, it
shocks man's god-given consciousness of justice, and it flies in
the face of the plainest teachings of God's holy Word. The
doctrine of original sin is not a Bible doctrine. It is a
grotesque myth that contradicts the Bible on almost every page.
But because good Christians can quote texts from the Bible to
"prove" the doctrine of original sin, they are convinced it is
true. But good Christians have rejected truth and clung to error
in the name of the Bible before.

For instance, Galileo and
Copernicus brought to the church the truth that the earth was not
the center of the universe, that the sun did not go around the
earth but that the earth went around the sun and that the earth
rotated on its axis, giving the illusion that the sun was going
around the earth.

We all know this to be true
now, but did all good Christians believe it then? No, both John
Calvin and Martin Luther clung, along with the church, to the
error that the earth was the center of the universe, that the sun
went around the earth and that the earth stood still.

"Martin Luther called
Copernicus 'an upstart astrologer' and a 'fool who wishes to
reverse the entire science of astronomy.' Calvin thundered: 'Who
will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of
the Holy Spirit? Do not the Scriptures say that Joshua commanded
the sun and not the earth to stand still? That the sun runs from
one end of the heavens to the other?'"

Both Calvin and Luther were
good, well-meaning men, but they still clung to their false views
because they could quote Scripture texts to support them.
Likewise, there are good, well-meaning Christians today who also
erroneously cling to the doctrine of original sin because they can
quote texts from the Bible to "prove" it.

It is these texts, that
have been taken out of context and misinterpreted to support this
false doctrine, that we will examine in the next
chapter.

Behold, I was shapen in
iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm
51:5

The wicked are estranged
from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking
lies. Psalm 58:3

And were by nature the
children of wrath, even as others. Eph. 2:3

Who can bring a clean thing
out of an unclean? Not one. Job 14:4

What is man that he should
be clean, and he that is born of a woman, that he should be
righteous? Job 15:14

Wherefore, as by one man
sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned...Therefore as by the
offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so
by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto
justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made
righteous. Rom. 5:12, 18, 19